Had Things Been Different
by tabtastic
Summary: Voldemort won the war the first time around, and everything is different. After a destructive bit of accidental magic, Harry is taken to a magical orphanage, where he begins to find his place in a world recovering from war. But fate has not forgotten him, and the echo of prophecy follows him as he burns his mark on the wizarding world. Mentor!Voldemort, gray!powerful!Harry


**Hello, dear readers! I actually am very annoyed by lengthy authors notes, so just think of this as a bit of a foreword and comfort yourself with the knowledge that any authors notes I may post in the future shall be kept brief.**

 **I've had this fic sitting in the back of my mind for months. I'm actually rather new to the whole fan fiction writing thing, and most of my stories and ideas stay safe and unread on my google docs. I am rather attached to this one, though, and I thought the best way to ensure that I actually keep up with it is to start posting it. I'll update as often as I can manage, but since I do have a job and a life and a family, the most I can safely promise is at least one chapter a month. I'm constantly astounded by those authors who manage to update once a week. Do they sleep?**

 **As for the fic itself, it's about as AU as you can get. Voldemort is not completely nuts, like he is in canon, and manages to win the first war. Harry will eventually become his protégé (yes, for those of you who are wondering, I have read Prince of a Dark Kingdom, and it is an inspiration for me. It's brilliant, and you will see some very, very rough similarities in this fic. They will remain, however, two completely differen stories). Rose Evans, Lily's mother, cared for Harry the year following his parents deaths, for reasons you will eventually discover. Lots of twists, I hope.**

 **I haven't decided on ship yet, if there is one at all. It won't be an important part of the plot. Relationships in general will wait until Harry is in his fourth or fifth year, at least.**

 **Last, although I have been to Great Britain, and I do presently live in Europe, I am not actually British, nor am I European. I shall endeavour to keep both narrative and dialogue as British as possible, but if any Americanisms slip out, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM and let me know, and I'll change it as soon as possible. For that matter, if there are any britpickers or betas out there who would like to edit this story, do let me know. I write on my Kindle, which means autocorrect does it's very best to ruin my life.**

 **For the record, I do not own Harry Potter. Surprise.**

 **That's it for now. Happy reading, and please do review!**

* * *

 _Chapter One_

Nothing much ever happened on Privet Drive. It was a quiet, normal street full of quiet, normal people; the sort of place people moved to because of the good schools, low crime rates and large backyards, where every house was nearly identical, and the inhabitants were very much the same. They wore the same sort of clothes, drove the same sort of cars and had the same sort of jobs. Anything that might be considered at all abnormal was quietly, tastefully untolerated. So, of course, everybody was very scandalized when Number 4 burned to ashes. It was the most abnormal thing that had happened since anybody could remember, and thus, of course, an unending source of gossip.

"They say it was a leaky gas line" Mrs. Williams of number 5 would say, sipping her iced lemonade from a tall crystal tumbler. "Very irresponsible of the Dursley's not to notice, really- and with the whole family home, no less. They could have burned down the whole neighborhood! Why, my roses were terribly singed, and they have never been the same since..."

"Now Clara," chided Mrs. Number 6, "Do try and be more forgiving. They lost everything you know, Petunia and Vernon. I hear they and their son are living with Vernon's sister now. Awful woman." She said with a shudder. Clara nodded her agreement.

"But do you know, Laura, it was the strangest thing..." Mrs. Williams gaze became distant, her dull brown eyes briefly gaining a measure of depth. "I was there when it happened, you know. I happened to be out in the garden, tending to the hydrangeas and I saw the whole thing. I was the one who called the fire brigade. There wasn't any sort of explosion, and the fire never really spread... It was just fine one moment, and the next the whole place was up in flames. These strange, green flames. Who ever heard of a thing like that?" Her voice was distant, wondering. There was a brief silence, soon broken by the sound of Mr. Williams returning home from the office and the subject was abandoned. Though the two women would chat about it over a cold drink on lazy summer days for years to come, all talk of strange, green flames was forgotten.

Nobody ever wondered at the fate of the fourth and final resident of Number 4. In fact, nobody even seemed to remember that there had ever been another person living in the large suburban house. But a fourth resident there was, and Harry, as he was called, did not know that he had been forgotten, nor would he have cared if he had. The day that the Dursley's house burned down was both the best and the worst day of Harry's short life. He, Harry Evans, had been the one who set the house aflame. Not with matches and fuel, or with a faulty gas line, but with fear and fury and magic. The day that Number 4 burned, the wizards came to take him away.

* * *

The date was August the fifteenth, and it had begun as normally as any other day Harry had lived. He woke up to the impatient rapping of Aunt Petunia's fist on the door. Petunia Dursley was a tall, thin woman, with edges sharp enough to cut. There wasn't a soft thing about her- from her cold, beady eyes (perfect for glaring judgement at her neighbors or, more often, her nephew) to her shrill, grating voice. It made the young boy wonder if his mother was as hard and cold as she was, since they had been sisters.

"Up! Get UP!" A voice like the piercing squeal of locked brakes screeched, clearly irritated.

Harry certainly hoped not. Sisters could be very different, couldn't they? Harry certainly did not look-or sound-anything like Aunt Petunia. His hair was black, thick and wild, completely at odds with her thin, but immaculately maintained blonde locks. His eyes were the vivid, emerald green of well-watered grass, where Petunia's were a dreary pale blue. Harry was small, and skinny in a way that came from not eating enough. His Aunt was tall and skinny in a way that was entirely down to nature.

Surely his mother ( _Lily_ , a voice whispered the name like a prayer in the secret, dark corners of his mind, where nobody could take it from him. _Lily_ ) had been as completely unlike Petunia as it was possible to be. Surely she had been warm and kind, and was never cruel to anyone. She must have been beautiful, the most beautiful woman ever, Harry decided certainly, and she had loved him more than anything in all the world. She and his father had been driving back to pick him up from Nana Rose's in time for Halloween. It must have been very important to them that he was there, Harry thought, because they had driven just a little too fast in the rain and had lost control of the car and slid off a bridge.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia said it was because they were drunk, but they lied about a lot of things, Harry knew, and that had to be one of them.

The black haired child put the thought out of his mind as he reached out into a darkness so complete it was nearly tactile to find his glasses. He settled the large, round frames on his nose, no longer bothered by the itch of the scotch tape that held them together after they had been repeatedly broken by his cousin, Dudley.

He quickly divested himself of the tatty gray t-shirt he wore to bed and selected the second cleanest of his four shirts, tucking it into his trousers and securing it all with a length of rope he used as a belt. It was a necessary precaution, since his trousers could easily fit two of him. All of his clothes had been worn by Dudley first, and even the smallest of them was several sizes to large for Harry, who was small for his age to begin with.

The fact that Dudley could easily be a junior division sumo wrestler, Harry thought wryly, probably did not help.

Judging by long experience that he had approximately five more minutes until Aunt Petunia was really annoyed, Harry took the time to find a matching pair of socks underneath his bed. He shook them out carefully before shoving them unceremoniously onto his feet. The spiders liked to congregate in the quiet darkness beneath his cot and while they and Harry had reached an accord long ago-Harry would not squish them so long as they did not bite- they had learned to respect each others space.

The cupboard under the stairs was a small place, after all, and the spiders had been there first. In Harry's mind, there was no point in being rude to your neighbors, even if they were arachnids.

"Boy!"

Times up, Harry noted with a wince. He exited his cupboard and followed the furious chopping sounds that meant Aunt Petunia was preparing breakfast.

Of all the chores that Harry had-and living with the Dursleys, they were many- he minded cooking the least. It was not difficult, or painful, or humiliating and on the rare occasion when Aunt Petunia left him alone in the kitchen, he was able to steal mouthfuls of food with no one the wiser.

Harry did not dare to imagine the consequences if he were caught stealing food-certainly a week in his cupboard without meals, at the very least- but the delectable smell of frying, sizzling bacon when he had eaten nothing but toast for days was more than he could bear.

He hated that he had to steal. He hated that he had to sneak food whenever he had the opportunity just to take the edge off of the endless, gnawing hunger in his belly. He hated that the Dursley's hated him.

And hate him they did. Harry could see that. He saw the way Petunia and Vernon treated Dudley; he was pampered, treasured, praised. That was how parents were supposed to treat the children they loved, he had gathered. The younger and smaller of the two cousins was degraded, reprimanded and punished frequently for invented infractions. The Dursleys made it very clear to Harry that he was an unwelcome burden upon their family. They would not have taken him in at all, but for the fact that Petunia's mother, Rose, who had custody of Harry for the year immediately following the death of his parents, had made the adoption of their unwanted nephew a condition of his Aunt Petunia's considerable inheritance when she died of cancer the summer of Harry's third birthday. There was no pleasing his relatives and the price for failing to meet their impossible standards was... exacting.

Harry hated them in the quiet, patient way that a prisoner hates his captors and in the desperate, painful way that the betrayed hates his betrayers.

The little boy had always dreamed that one day some distant relation would appear to take him away, reassuring him that it was all a terrible mistake, and he was, indeed, loved and missed. His startling green eyes followed the families of the children he would see at school with an acute yearning, and he wished... Oh, how he wished.

Wishes, Harry found, were not worth very much.

In the end, the young boy considered with a weary sigh, he would probably be stuck with the Dursleys until he was old enough to strike out on his own. He could make it if he just kept his head down and tried to avoid drawing attention to himself.

" _Boy_!" A voice shrieked from the next room.

Harry grimaced.

He could make it. He had to.

* * *

It was later in the afternoon when it happened.

Harry had completed his morning chores and was in the process of making lunch for the Dursleys. The morning had been relatively calm. Dudley was at one of his friends' house, so Harry was able to weed the garden and paint the shed in peace. He was grateful for it. When Dudley was bored, he liked to entertain himself by pushing or tripping Harry as he tried to work, often making him fall and undoing whatever he had managed to accomplish so far. Dudley seemed to find this most amusing of all.

Harry was just relieved to be inside again. It was August and the sun had beaten down on his fair skin unrelentingly for the past four hours. He could already feel the sun burn that had formed during that time, and he dreaded having to trim the hedges later in the heat of the afternoon.

The eight year old briefly entertained the idea of just telling the Dursleys "no." What was the worst they could do to him, he daydreamed as he chopped onions. Beat him? It probably would not hurt much worse than the severe burn he would have on the back of his neck later, Harry thought cavalierly.

They could stick him in his cupboard. That wouldn't be so bad. It was his, at least. It was dark, cold and small, but it was safe. The Dursleys would never go inside his cupboard. Petunia, because it was dirty, cramped and generally beneath her, and Dudley and Vernon simply because their considerable girth would not allow them to fit through the diminutive door frame. No, his cupboard would not be too bad. He did not mind the darkness, and the hunger hardly bothered him any more. The thirst, though- that was awful. One glass of water a day was not nearly enough, and the Dursley's had a tendency to forget about him after they locked him away.

Of course, this was all only supposition. Harry knew that he would never actually openly defy the Dursleys, no matter how satisfying it was to think about. He knew it would be foolish to antagonize the people who held such power over him, and he understood that he would be able to get away with more subtle offenses later on if he toed the line.

 _Still_ , he thought as he lifted the pan of now frying onions from the stove in a movement that was practiced, but also struggled, since the stove top was approximately at eye level for him, _I can-_

That was when it happened.

Dudley had apparently come home while Harry was in the kitchen and was in the process of sneaking up behind him; likely to try and push or trip him as he cooked. It was very like his cousin to ignore the fact that he was surrounded by heated surfaces and sharp objects and could easily be seriously injured if he did so. Indeed, Dudley would probably see it as another element of entertainment. However, this meant that Dudley was exactly behind Harry as the young boy turned with the hot pan in hand. Harry could only watch in helpless horror as the inertia of his motion sent the scalding surface careening toward his rotund, oblivious cousin. The pan brushed the exposed skin of Dudley's fleshy arm with all the weight of fate itself.

It was only a small burn, really. Harry had sustained much worse in the course of his short life. Dudley wailed as if his entire arm had been submerged in hot oil.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon rushed into the kitchen, panicked.

"Oh, my poor precious Diddykins! What happened?" Aunt Petunia cried, her horsey face pale and pinched with concern.

Harry tried very hard to disappear as the large, round crying boy blubbered out an explanation and Vernon turned his protruding, piggish eyes to his frightened nephew.

Harry had been so afraid. It was not an uncommon state for him, living with the Dursleys, who expressed in no uncertain terms that their nephew was a freak, and that freaks did not deserve to be treated like normal people. Harry could not even justifiably deny it. Freakish things just happened to him. Things broke when he was upset. Garden snakes would come and talk to him when he worked outside. He had once even managed to turn his teachers wig blue. He had tried to explain that it was not him, that he had no idea how it could have happened, but his uncle would not hear it, and brought out the belt. Harry had thought then, that he knew true fear.

That was nothing compared to this. Harry had never dared to hurt his cousin. He had never fought back against him, no matter how he bullied him, because he knew that if Dudley were ever injured at his hand, he might never again see the light of day. He swallowed.

"I-I-I-I'm s-sorry. I'm so sorry. It was an accident, I swear!" Harry stammered fearfully, slowly backing from the towering fury of his rapidly purpling uncle until his back touched the counter.

"THINK YOU CAN HURT MY SON, DO YOU, BOY?" Vernon bellowed, his many chins trembling in rage.

"No, I didn't mean to, I d-"

"I'LL SHOW YOU!" With a wordless, furious cry Vernon hefted Harry up by the scruff of his neck and shoved his face toward the still hot surface of the oven burner, which glowed a merry cherry red in perverse welcome.

Harry burned. He burned with rage, with the helpless, impotent fury of the weak against the strong; with the knowledge that the Dursley's would always hate him, always hurt him, because they could. Because they had power over him. He burned with fear, with the knowledge that he was about to hurt in a way that he had never been hurt before, and none of his uncle's brutal beatings would even begin to compare. And finally, as his face cleared the last few inches to the stovetop, the world burned with him. There was fire everywhere, blazing, devouring, and the sound of screaming somewhere close, and yet very far away.

Harry stood in the swirling, hungry flames, completely unharmed, watching as they licked away at the floral wall paper of the recently renovated kitchen. _This_ , Harry thought, _This is power._ His face, previous frozen in a rictus of dull astoundment, slowly shifted into a crazed grin.

 _Burn_.

The flames billowed outward in a cloud of emerald heat.

Harry laughed loudly and at length, and without any semblance of sanity. The inferno blazed.

That was when the wizards came; four black robed figures who strode calmly into the blaze, seemingly unaffected by the heat. They seemed completely unfazed by the odd, green-tinged flames, or the hysterically giggling eight year old boy who sat directing the dancing fire like the eccentric conductor of an elemental orchestra.

One of the figures pointed a thin black stick at Harry's chest. He saw a flash of red light and knew no more.

* * *

Harry Evans, eight year old orphan and former resident of Number 4, Privet Drive, woke up in a cloud of blurred white. His hand automatically reached out to the bedside table, where he was pleased to find his glasses placed neatly in the center. He settled the frames on his nose and the world came into focus.

It was still very... white. A row of beds with crisp, snow-white sheets made up with military precision lined the room, each with a stiff, white curtain that could be drawn to give the illusion of privacy. The tile floor was a sort of creamy, off-white, and the room itself was painted the color of eggshells. The only real color came from the pictures on the walls: fanciful renditions of cats, toads, snakes, unicorns, and strange, blue dragonfly-like creatures. It smelled of antiseptic and something... else. It made his nostrils tingle.

It had the same sterile, impersonal feeling that the school infirmary had, the few times that he has been there. He was in an infirmary, then, Harry decided, vaguely satisfied.

Harry wondered at this. If he was in some kind of hospital, he probably should be worried. After, you only went to the infirmary when you were hurt. And something had happened. Something with fire and the Dursleys... something small and dark wriggled in the back of his mind, but he couldn't seem to hold onto it long enough to capture it. Oh well. He was in an empty white infirmary, even though he felt fine.

 _I wonder what will happen next._ The boy could not seem to muster more than a vague sense of ambivalence at the thought. He folded his hands in his lap and settled his gaze on the wall opposite him, content to wait until something occured.

He did not have to wait long.

"Harry Evans?" A voice asked from the left of him, where the door was. It was a kind sounding, female voice, which made sense, as turning his head, Harry soon discovered that it came from a kind looking female person.

Harry continued to gaze unblinkingly at the young blonde for a long moment. "You know my name," He noted mildly. "I think that's rather unfair. I'm sure I don't know yours." His brows furrowed, a look of faint confusion upon his childish features. "Or do I? Everything is sort of... fuzzy. Like when your glasses are really dirty, so you can't see, except that it's my brain and I can't think." The pale young boy looked very lost for a moment. "I don't think I like it very much," He confided, his voice a whisper in the glacial white.

"Not to worry, Harry," The blonde said with a sympathetic smile. "It's merely a side effect of the calming draught we have had you taking. We needed to make sure that you wouldn't be terribly frightened when you woke up someplace you'd never been before. It should wear off in an hour or two."

"Right," Harry agreed happily. "And where am I, exactly?"

"This is the Magical Child Reclamation and Rehabilitation Centre, or the MCRRC. It's our job to find all the magical children in Britain that accidentally end up in non magical families and bring them back where they belong, with other witches and wizards." The witch smiled comfortingly. "We are glad to have you with us, Harry."

Harry was still considering the magical aspect of her dialogue. "Is it magic, then, what I can do?" He wondered, curious. Magic seemed like something he could like. It sounded like fun, and goodness knows that had never been allowed at the Dursleys.

The witch's cornflower blue eyes sparkled as she regarded him. "And what is it that you can do, Harry?" Harry opened his mouth to tell her about the snakes, how they came to him, whispered to him, but something deep inside -deeper than the Calming Draughts and their strange apathy could reach- told him that it was meant to be kept secret.

"Just... with the fire..." Harry's eyes narrowed as some of his memories concerning the infero began to clear. "I burned Number 4 down, didn't I? With magic?"

The smile on her face became studious, her expression carefully unchanged. "Not to worry, Mr. Evans. Nobody was harmed. It was just a little case of accidental magic. It happens to all wizarding children. You will stay here at the MCRRC for a few months, and then we will find you a new, magical family who will be able to help teach you to control your magic, so it should never happen again."

"A new family?" Harry was not sure how one went about getting a new family. He had been under the impression that you were stuck with what you got. Otherwise, he would have traded the Dursley's out ages ago.

"Yes, exactly." The woman nodded. "You are a bit older than most of the children we get, but never mind that. I'm sure they will love you." She reassured him.

Harry nodded sleepily, eyelids drooping.

"Go to sleep, Harry." Said the lady, not unkindly, "And you can meet the other children when you wake. If you need anything call for Matron Laura. I will hear you." The woman, Matron Laura, swept out of the infirmary with the bustling efficiency of a practiced nurse, but Harry did not see, for he had already fallen back into a deep and dreamless sleep.

* * *

Interested? Disgusted? Vaguely amused? Let me know!

Thanks for reading!


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